I intially made my choice to switch my child to the one of two choices I was given for my child under the no child left behind plan based on the repuatation of the host school that I would later house the annexx of this no child left behind school. I had initiallly called the principal of the school and told her that I had read about the great things she had done for the school she was at, and I was extremely impressed by the positive messages on the school’s website. She called me back and thanked me but told me that she would not be my child’s prinicpal and wished me well. I think I can honestly say that at the time I did not understand the depth that she would not be his principal but said OK and we finished the conversation.
I would soon learn that my child would be annexed into an empty part of the building in the larger school. I immediately recognized this as a divisive dicriminatory practice designed to seperate the no child left behind children from the general population of the other school because it is and was assumed that children who come from failing schools are impoverished and undesirables. Though since I am pretty familiar with the area, I was aware that the range of homes in the schools that failed AYP ranged from about 105,000 to 800,000 dollar homes. In any event beingeing from the South I recognized the annex tactic as a particulary southern ruse of seperatism. While historically whites are known for seperatissm in the south, blacks know the practice very well in the south. This Annexx was Dekalb Counties version of seperate but equal in our so called modernized society. As an African American I always find it amazing that black’s whoop and holler for rights and then turn around and participate in the same behaviour that they don’t want to expereince. Rosa Parks did not want to sit in the back of the bus and many blacks fought so that blacks and whites could eat at teh same lunch counters, use the same bathrooms and have the same educational and emplyment oppurtunities. Finally here was a group of black educational leaders creating the practice in a definite seperate but unequal fashion.
